۞

Mary Jane had hardly taken off running for her life when the wide strides of the stranger brought him up directly behind her. He quickly reached out his arms and scooped her up off of her feet, and she screamed, accordingly... kicking wildly, struggling against the strong arms that were holding her up off of the ground, Mary Jane howled with all of her might, more angry, now, than frightened. She was upon the receiving end of quite a surprise when the deep, gravelly voice of this frightening man said, quite matter-of-factly, "Struggle all that ye might, missy, I am not putting ye down until ye stop kicking..." He spoke Gaelic!

She finally ran out of strength... she had kicked so hard that her slippers had flown off of her feet, and her already unruly auburn hair was now hanging in her face in a most unladylike fashion... not that she cared much about being a little lady, especially since she felt that things such as that did not matter one whit in the world that she was so angry with.

She gasped for breath, dangling from the pirate's arms... she was being held firmly with her back against his chest, and it was then that she finally decided to stop trying to escape... it did not mean that she had to talk to this man.

Finally putting the child down, but not letting go of her, the stranger turned her around to look at her, and there was a surprising hint of kindness in his eyes. His face was not handsome, but there was a worldliness about him that Mary Jane found suddenly fascinating... for a pirate, he rather had the look of a gypsy about him. He spoke, his words brief, but soft..."What are you doing here?"

Mary Jane did not say a word... her lower lip protruded in a petulant way, and she glowered up at the pirate.

He sighed, looking about at the scene before him, and very directly asked, "What happened here? Where is the woman and the little boy who used to live here?"

Mary Jane hesitated... and then spoke, herself, ".. who are you?"

The pirate looked down at her, and answered, "... well, I asked you first, and the first question that I asked you, very politely, was' what are you doing here"?"

Mary Jane also looked around, and finally found herself looking at the empty place where a cottage used to stand through a blur of tears... very quietly, she answered, "I come here to grieve for my friends..."

The pirate's eyes widened with shock... "What?"

Mary Jane looked at her toes, which were wearing only her stockings, since her shoes were in the underbrush, somewhere. She swallowed hard, and said, "... the woman who lived here has been dead for over two years... and the little boy...," her lower lip now began to tremble, and she began to dig a toe into the long grass... afraid that the pirate might not like weeping little girls, Mary Jane kept her head down, and began to sniffle.

The pirate had let go of her, and he gently knelt down in front of this sad child... searching the face of this tearful little Irish colleen, he put a finger under her chin and made her look up. His own eyes were joining her in sorrow... "... Maggie is dead?" Mary Jane nodded.

The pirate looked as if his heart had just had a crack hammered into it ... "... and my son... Jackie?"

Mary Jane stared at him hard... this man was the man that Maggie had spoken of... Jack's father, who was at sea, never seen, but always present when Jack would speak of him wishfully, and always present in the coins of gold from all over the known world when Maggie would pay for food or rent... Mary Jane got more courageous, and asked, "Are you Captain Teague?"

The pirate nodded, "Captain Edward Jonathan Teague... "

Mary Jane gazed into his burning black eyes, and thought of her father. The murderer. The man who had caused Maggie Sparrow's death and who had sold a helpless little boy into a world of depravity and degradation. She suddenly felt a kinship to this fearsome man who was just realizing that the woman that had borne his son was long dead... his eyes were burning with something that Mary Jane could not understand, but felt close to...

Mustering up her courage, Mary Jane said, "My name is Ma..." she hesitated, and said, with finality, "... my name is 'Janie'... Maggie died, and Jack was... Jack was..." New tears began to form, as she struggled with what had been pent up inside of her little heart for all of these months.

As Captain Teague patiently waited, little Janie started to cry... "Jack was sold into slavery... I don't know if he is still alive or not... he was my only friend... ", and with that, she dissolved into tears, her entire body shaking with lonely, wracking sobs.

Teague stared at her in utter shock... finally pulling this grieving child into his arms, he carried her over to a large stone and held her as she cried... slavery... his Maggie was dead and his boy was sold into the most despicable institution known to man... "Why, child?"

Janie buried her face in this man's long braids, and struggled to speak,"...b-b-because they were g-g-gypsies...J-j-jack was my best friend, and I miss him so m-m-much..." she trembled, still fighting the tears...

Teague could not believe his ears. His family was gone. Just as he was finally going to try to reconcile with Maggie, after sending her money through what he thought was a trusted messenger every year since Jack was a baby, he finds out that they were gone... for over two years. He felt as though the very world had stopped turning.

Staring at the little toy ship that he had laid upon the ground, holding a crying child, not his own, who was heartbroken over both of their loss, Teague felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach... he should have had the courage to try to win Maggie back... but it was too late for that...

۞

They sat in this way for quite some time... Janie finally had quieted her tears, hiccuping softly into Captain Teague's velvet vest. He was still a frightening man, but had held her so gently as she finally vented the anger and fear and loneliness that she had felt since that horrible November night. He was comforting, this man... he was rocking her in his arms, as she had craved from her own father... his person had the aromas of salt air, tanned leather, and an exotic spice in his hair that she could not identify... breathing deeply of his braids, she savored the fragrance... looking up at Teague, he said, simply, "Patchouli oil."

Finally, she opened up to him... he was entitled to know... he needed to know, as perhaps he would be the way that Janie could make true her vow to find her friend, somehow... and once she told Teague the story in its entirety, good and bad, he was silent for a very long time, his face an unreadable mask, but his eyes began to glow in a very odd way... like someone had taken a flint and had sparked a flame, deep down inside.

Turning Janie to look at him, he said, "... Janie, you have been a very brave, brave little girl, and I can see why Maggie and Jack would have thought so much of you... you have a bit of gypsy in you, I can tell." Janie smiled up at Captain Teague, who continued,"You will need to be brave for a long time, as I am going to give you a very big responsibility...do you think that you can do it?"

Janie's blue eyes grew wide, and nodded, hesitantly...

Teague's eyes began to burn brightly, and he said, "... I suspect that the gold that I have been sending here for the last two years might be in your father's possession. We can't worry about that now, but I am going to ask you to do something very important, lassie..."

He took the heavy bag that he had carried in his hand when she first saw him, and opened it. Janie's eyes nearly popped out of her head, as she had never seen so much gold in her young life. Teague tied the bag closed, and placed it in her hands. It was extremely heavy.

"I am going to entrust this to you, Janie. I want you to find a hiding place that no one else would ever know of, and I want you to put this bag of gold there for safekeeping. Do you think that you can do that? Do not do anything with it, and keep hiding it until I tell you otherwise, savvy?'

'I am a pirate, and you told me that Maggie taught you many gypsy ways... I wish to strike an accord with you... that's an agreement, little lassie... that you will safekeep this gold ... for my little son, and your best friend... I am going to the slave market in An Clochán tonight, and I am going to break into the office and find the logbooks for the slave ships that sailed in November of two years ago... " Teague's face was beginning to fill with more fury with every word that he uttered, and Janie's sad heart began to fill with pride...

As they solemnly shook hands, Captain Teague embraced Janie to him... "... if my son is still alive, I swear that I will find him... you say that your father, Maggie's landlord, is responsible for this... I don't have time to attend to him right now, as there has been too much time wasted ... his kind are their own undoing... I want you to keep a weather eye out, as I will keep in touch with you... you are in this as deep as my son and I are, lassie... I will leave right away... you have given me the knowledge that I need to start hunting for my Jackie...

Janie looked up at this fearsome man... a man who was frightening, and yet who loved his young son with all of his heart... and she said, in the very blunt way that was becoming her custom, "... he is my Jackie, too..." and her blue eyes glowed with a fire of love for her best friend, and a new passion for revenge against the man that she was ashamed to call her father... she would no longer consider herself Mary Jane Ó Madáin , but would now call herself Janie O'Madden.. it would distance herself from her father in her own mind and heart.

She did not tell Captain Teague, but she knew where to hit her father where it hurt the most, and she made up her mind that not only was she going to hide this gold that Teague had entrusted her with, but if Teague was right, she was going to find out if her father had, indeed, taken pirate gold that was not his... pirate gold that was meant for Maggie and Jack...

... pirate gold that was now blood money...

To be continued...